More are serving as their own lawyer

Judge: It's not just poor people

OMAHA - When Danielle Nitzel found her three-year-old marriage drawing its last breath in 2004, she couldn't afford the minimum of $1,000 she was told she would need to hire a divorce lawyer.

So she did what more and more Americans are doing: She represented herself in court.

"I looked online and just tried to figure out how to write out the paperwork," said Nitzel, a nursing student who at the time had little money and a pile of education loans. "I think it cost us $100 to file it ourselves."

The number of people serving as their own lawyers is on the rise across the country, and the cases are no longer limited to uncontested divorces and small claims. Even people embroiled in child-custody cases, potentially devastating lawsuits, and bankruptcies are representing themselves, legal specialists say.

"It's not just that poor people can't afford lawyers. This is really a middle-class phenomenon," said Sue Talia, a judge from Danville, Calif., and author of "Unbundling Your Divorce: How to Find a Lawyer to Help You Help Yourself."

The trend has resulted in court systems clogged with filings from people unfamiliar with legal procedure. Moreover, some of these pro se litigants, as they are known, are making mistakes with expensive and long-lasting consequences - perhaps confirming the old saying that he who represents himself has a fool for a client.

Paul Merritt, a district judge in Lancaster County, Neb., said he knows of cases in which parents lost custody disputes because they were unfamiliar with such legal standards as burden of proof.

While the fees lawyers charge vary widely, the average hourly rate ranges from around $180 to $285 in the Midwest and from $260 to more than $400 on the West Coast, according to legal consultant Altman Weil Inc.

Tim Eckley of the American Judicature Society in Des Moines said no national figures are kept on how many people represent themselves, "but I don't think anybody who's involved in the courts would deny that this is a growing trend in the last 10 to 15 years."

The legal profession may not like the trend but realizes it is here to stay; it has gotten behind the effort. The American Bar Association is encouraging states to set up self-help desks and adopt standard forms for such things as uncontested divorces